Compared to stingrays discus are hardy and easy to keep, the water quality needs to be spot on always with the nitrates never going above 30ppm and the pH and hardness being as stable as possible, even minor fluctuations in water quality can result in a dead ray. As said when purchasing a ray even if you got it locally you must spend several hours at least acclimatising the ray to your tank water, if you have bought your ray from a shop further away or by mail order it may take several days to acclimatize the fish. To really put the icing on the cake they are very difficult to feed and can take several months to ween onto available foods, to keep them alive until they decide to feed properly you will need vast quantities of live bloodworms/blackworms and live shrimp (ghost/river shrimp). They are also highly sensative to chemicals and there are very few safe medications that can be used with them, the only off the shelf medication i am aware of that is safe is Melafix, ICH and fungus meds will kill a ray quicker than a hard bang on the head. Luckily they are usually expensive so only people willing to put in the effort needed to keep them will buy them, here in the UK prices start from about £100 for decent ray.
lol.. Good thing I didn't buy one.. are the ones sold in LFS tank bred or are they wild caught???
